If there is one thing about Warhammer 40,000: Conquest that new players miss, it is the importance of the Command Struggle. Sure, you can try to dump all your units at planet 1 each turn and hope to win by brute force, but after a turn or so you’ll look across the table and say “Hey, why do I only have 4 resources and 2 cards while my opponent has 10 resources and 7 cards?”. The reason? The Command Struggle.
The Command Struggle is the most subtle part of Conquest, but if you ask me, it is easily the most important part of it. Even if the first three planets share an icon and your opponent won the first two, with more resources and cards at your disposal you can pick and choose your battles and overwhelm your opponent where necessary. The Command Struggle requires many small choices to maximize your returns and minimize your losses.
So the question is, how do you maximize your gains from the Command Struggle, while not letting your opponent win the game by planet icons?
As you all know, whichever player has more command icons on their units at a planet after Warlords have committed will receive the card and resource bonus from a planet. Leaving Warlords out of it for now, let’s discuss the basics.